Is American peanut butter sweet?

32 comments

1. Depends on the peanut butter. Generally the cheaper food is, the more sugar is added to it. So cheap peanut butter is often sweet, whereas natural peanut butter, which is more expensive, is just peanuts, oil, and salt, so it’s savory.

2. There is a spectrum of sweetness. I personally prefer the less sweet versions.

3. Hated peanut butter growing up, tried a Reese’s cup and fell in love, tried peanut butter and still hated it. So no, the peanut butter is not sweet it’s just thick salt to me LOL only Reese’s peanut butter is sweet

4. Yeah some of it can be pretty sweet, a lot of peanut butters have added sugar. But you can also get peanut butter without sugar.

5. Not really. Some are sweeter than others, but none are especially sweet.

6. It *can* be, but not as a rule. A brand like [Peter Pan Peanut Butter](https://www.peterpanpb.com/products/regular/creamy-peanut-butter/) is going to be almost dessert-like, whereas something like [Smuckers Creamy](https://www.smuckers.com/products/peanut-butter/natural-peanut-butter/natural-creamy-peanut-butter) has no added sugars at all.

   Personal tastes vary. I prefer the latter because it’s flexible enough to use for both sandwiches and savory cooking.

7. Looks to be 2-3g of sugar per 32g serving

8. Yeah, when I was doing keto I had to avoid certain brands because they are sweetened.

9. Not very, no. It’s usually a mix of savory (like nuts) and salty, with maybe a slight sweetness. Its a lot different than Swedish peanut butter which has a more oily, chemical taste.

10. there’s a spectrum, for sure. Usually the peanut butters here in Europe are the more natural, less sweet kind, where you find both in the US, the natural/organic kind and the processed sugary kind.

11. Our most popular commercial peanut butters, like [JIF](https://www.jif.com/peanut-butter/creamy/creamy-peanut-butter) or [Skippy](https://www.peanutbutter.com/peanut-butter/creamy), are made from peanuts that are roasted, salted, and slightly sweetened. They’re then blended with shelf-stable oil (typically cottonseed, soybean or rapeseed oil) for spreadability.

    I would describe them as slightly sweet, they’re certainly not a dessert spread like Nutella.

12. Most are. Some are not; those are harder to find and usually much more expensive

13. Our peanut butter is from roasted peanuts, very good.

    European peanut butter is made with raw peanuts, which make it a very different food.

14. The stuff that doesn’t separate in the jar usually is.

    A good indicator of not sweetened peanut butter is its also the kind where peanut oil makes its way to the top of the jar after sitting for long enough.

15. Europeans complain that it is. I don’t think it’s as extreme as they say, but then I am naturally biased. To give you an idea, when I first got to Europe, the cake tasted like bread to me. I was like “WTF is this? This is not cake.”

    That aside, I do prefer American PB to what seems to be available in Europe. But it’s mainly because of the texture.

16. Compared to other countries’ peanut butter?

    Yes.

    The main difference from what I’ve heard is that roasted peanuts are the standard in the U.S. and that’s what our peanut butter is made from. It also has more salt and sugar added.

    My understanding is that Europeans’ idea of peanut butter is somewhat removed from what we call peanut butter

17. Cheap stuff, yes. Some are no sugar added.

18. It is funny that someone from Sweden is asking this. The first time I ever went to Europe was to Sweden for work and I noticed that when I bought groceries so much stuff just had less sugar in it in general. The biggest difference was yogurt. I think this is probably the case with a lot of European countries. It was kind of nice.

19. As mentioned elsewhere, make sure your PB is made from *roasted* peanuts.

    Then, not as a breakfast (unless if you want), try a banana, peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.

    Even most Americans deny themselves this delightful sandwich but you Nordics eat all kinds of weird shit so you will probably not balk at this one LOL.

    It is the best sandwich ever. A family staple for my family. My wife grew up with banana, peanut butter and jam, but that is too sweet IMO. Mayonnaise adds the lubrication that the peanut butter needs, And saltiness, but it doesnt push it over into being too sweet.

    Seriously, try it.

20. According to a New Zealander living in Texas like a decade ago who wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how it was so awful here because it wasn’t a copy/paste of back home: yes, and we’re evil for letting it be that way

    Honestly, I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had foreign peanutbutter. But there’s a wide variety here so I doubt all of it is sweet

21. Nope

22. Not really

23. This is America, everything has sugar in it.

24. It depends. You can find peanut butter with 100% peanuts, nothing added, sweetened peanut butter that is peanuts and sugar, and you can find peanut butter **spread**, which is cheaper and contains oil, sugar and other stuff that make it smoother, easier to spread, sweeter and more palatable to some, but is certainly not just ground peanuts.

25. I ate Jif until I moved to Boston.

    Then I found Teddie. Just peanuts and salt. Yeah, it separates. Stirring it in the jar is worth it.

    Now I can never leave Boston.

26. In the US peanut butter is almost always made with roasted peanuts and has a range of different sugar contents.

    I lived in EU for 5 years and let me tell you, they do not make peanut butter like they do in the states. All of my family members knew that they should bring me as much peanut butter as they could fit on their visits out to me.

27. Slightly, because its roasted.

28. I don’t necessarily believe even the cheep “sugary” peanut butter is sweet.

29. Yes it’s sweet lol. I work at a peanut processor. We roast and blanch them before sending them off to Mars to be used in candy. We are opening a new peanut butter plant end of the year. I couldn’t imagine eating a natural no additive peanut butter. It occurs naturally here in the machines if the peanut stay in them to long . It’s a pain to clean up 33 gallons of peanut butter out of a machine.

30. I never thought it was, until I had some in Europe once. Compared to that, yeah, it’s sweet. And yours tastes like ass.

31. unpopular opinion: i fucking hate peanut butter

32. United States law requires anything labelled “peanut butter” be made of 90% peanuts. The remaining 10% consists of salt, sugar, vegetable oil, and potentially an emulsifier. Artificial sweeteners, dyes and chemical preservatives aren’t allowed. Preservatives aren’t necessary as far as I can tell, I’ve never seen peanut butter expire.

    Let me get down my 4 pound jar of store-brand peanut butter…

    Ingredients: dry roasted peanuts, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil (rapeseed, cottonseed, soybean), molasses, salt. **CONTAINS: PEANUTS** **^((while I realize peanut allergies are absolutely no joke and these warning labels are a matter of life and death for some, the fact that it has to be on a product which is by law 90% peanuts still irks me))**

    This is the cheap stuff, purchased by blue collar families of 15 and bachelors who have given up. The stuff with “Non-GMO” written on the label bought by middle class wine moms to feed to their heavily medicated middle schoolers will probably exchange the hydrogenated vegetable oil for straight peanut oil. Being a liquid at room temperature, this oil will separate out, requiring stirring.

    Let’s take a spoonful…Flavor wise, it’s very slightly sweeter than a roasted peanut. And, if you get “salted roasted peanuts” they’re saltier than my peanut butter here.

    Note that Americans stereotypically pair peanut butter with jelly or jam, which usually brings a lot more sweetness.

    Peanut butter is one of those supplies I won’t even try to run a household without; I treat being out of peanut butter as an emergency of similar severity to having a broken toilet: We’re not in any actual danger but this needs to be fixed RIGHT NOW.